Covid-19 prompts over 16pc increase in provincial health budget.

Byline: Azfar-ul-Ashfaque

KARACHI -- In a bid to meet the challenge of Covid-19 in the province, the Sindh government has increased the allocation for the health sector by 16.1 per cent - from Rs114.4 billion to Rs132.88bn - in the provincial budget for financial year 2020-21.

In addition to Rs132.88bn, Rs7bn has been allocated for nine vertical programmes, including polio control, AIDS, TB, thus making the total allocation for the health sector Rs139.17bn.

Despite facing a serious financial crunch, the provincial government also increased health's development portfolio.

In his budget speech at the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said that his government had earlier decided to keep the size of development budget for 2020-21 'nearly same as that of 2019-20'.

However, he added, in exceptional cases such as health, allocation had been increased from Rs13.50bn to Rs23.50bn in order to meet the challenges of Covid-19 pandemic.

Allocations made for key healthcare facilities across the province

The CM said he was committed to providing maximum resources for the health sector. 'Health continues to remain the third largest sector and for financial year 2020-21 total current revenue expenditure is budgeted at Rs139.1bn while allocation for development schemes is Rs23.5bn.

Covid-19 measures

An amount of Rs5bn is allocated for Covid-19 response, the budget document says, recalling the extraordinary challenge that the provincial government has been facing since February.

It said that the government had established a Rs3bn Coronavirus Emergency Fund and released Rs1.11bn for setting up field isolation centres in the current financial year.

In addition, Rs4.12bn was released to designated public and private health facilities for Covid-19 and Rs1.08bn was provided to all deputy commissioners for providing rations to the poor and daily wage earners.

The CM told the Sindh Assembly in his budget speech that during the current financial year (2019-20), Rs4bn was allocated as a special grant for the Indus Hospital Karachi.

The government has also allocated Rs500m for the National Institute of Blood Diseases (NIBD).

Rs7bn for nine vertical programmes

The CM said that Rs7bn had been allocated in the financial year 2020-21 for nine vertical programmes to combat/control polio, TB, AIDS, hepatitis control, expanded programme for immunisation and others.

An amount of Rs559.4m has been allocated for the TB Control Programme while...